A R T I C L E

WilliamRossetti’sAldineEditionofBlake

R.W.Peattie

Blake/AnIllustratedQuarterly,Volume12,Issue1,Summer1978,pp.4-9

4

W I L L I A M MICHAEL ROSSETTI'S

ALDINE EDITION OF BLAKE

R. W. PEATTIE

Although Wil l iam Michael Rossetti has been given his due as a major contr ibutor to Victor ian wr i t ings on Blake, a number of

unpublished or unremarked de ta i l s re la t i ng to the preparat ion, publ icat ion and reception of his ed i t ion of the Poetical Works of William Blake (1874) make his concern wi th Blake's reputat ion worth returning t o .

1 As early as 1864, in a l e t t e r to Horace Scudder,

Rossetti lamented the public response to G i l ch r i s t in a way which suggests how much more he considered needed to be done to secure Blake's fame. Scudder had recently reviewed G i l ch r i s t in the North American Review, and Rossetti was acknowledging a copy of the review.

27 November 1864

My dear S i r , I have to thank you very s incerely for

your note, & the accompanying review of Blake from the North American Review. However I had already read the a r t i c l e ; having seen i t advertized & strongly suspecting--from my knowledge of what has taken place on former occasions where a l i t t l e openness to new impressions was needed, & a l i t t l e boldness of opinion—that the book would be bet ter estimated in America than in England. I found my an t i c ipa-t ion more than confirmed, & derived much pleas-ure from a perusal of the a r t i c l e . I t is ( i f I

may say so to you without impertinence) far the best I have seen; & I am sorry to say that i t is not necessarily so much a compliment as I mean i t to be, for the English not ices, wi th one or two exceptions amounting to to le rab le , have been s i l l y , poor s t u f f which an Englishman winces & blushes a t - -o r ought to do so, at l eas t .

2 My brother, who saw your a r t i c l e here

yesterday, jo ins me in ra t ing that very d i f f e ren t l y - -as being pos i t i ve ly not less than comparatively a worthy t r i bu te to that very wonderful genius, the "mad-man" of his discern-ing countrymen, Blake.

3

I t was almost another decade, however, before Rossetti was offered the chance to wr i te comprehen-s ive ly on Blake. Two entr ies in his Diary, the f i r s t for 8 May 1872 and the second for 6 August 1873, give a reasonably f u l l account of the o r i g i n of his e d i t i o n :

Daldy the Publisher cal led on me, th ink ing of including Blake in his Aldine series of Poets;

4

& he asked me whether I wd. undertake the edi t ing—inc lud ing a Memoir of some 30 to 100 pages. He does not wish to inser t the Prophetic Books, but only a complete set of the poems of an ordinary cast. I rep l ied that I wd. under-take the work for fe50, on the understanding

THE POETICAL WORKS OF

WILLIAM BLAKE,

/i/jL *+~ $&4>L

LYRICAL AND MISCELLANEOUS.

E D I T E D , W I T H A P R E F A T O R Y MEMOIR, BY

WILLIAM MICHAEL EOSSETTI.

He wanders, like a day-appearing dream, Through the dim wildernesses of the mind.

SHELLEY.

LONDON:

GEORGE BELL AND SONS, YORK STREET,

COVENT GARDEN.

1874.

that I am not to be contro l led in anything I may see f i t to say; also that I might not f ind i t convenient to commence the work fo r some 6 mos. or so to come. Daldy took leave, saying he wd. consult wi th his partner B e l l . He had in the f i r s t instance proposed for e i ther Gabriel or me as ed i to r ; but, as I to ld him, i t is p rac t i ca l l y cer ta in that G. wd. decl ine.

Mr. B e l l ,5 of the publ ishing f i r m , cal led on me

at Som. Ho., & agreed to the terms set f o r th under 8 May 1872 regarding an ed i t ion of Blake's poems in his Aldine ser ies. He wd. l i k e the introductory notice to be only about 32 to 48 pp . ,

6 & the arrangement of the poems mainly

chronological . The Prophetic Books wd. not be included: I th ink however an exception must be made in favour at any rate of the Marriage of Heaven & H e l l , i f only fo r the sake of making the vo l . of a moderately substantial th ickness.

7

Unfortunately a considerable gap in Rossetti1s Diary

between the second entry and la te 1876 makes i t impossible to chart the preparation of the volume as thoroughly as we can document his ea r l i e r edi t ions of Whitman and Shelley, though a number of his l e t t e r s to Swinburne and Mrs. G i l ch r i s t o f fe r addi t ional information. We can assume that he worked with his usual steadiness, for on 4 March 1874 he informed

Swinburne that "Yesterday I received the f i r s t proofs, both of the poems & of my Prefatory Memoir A copy of the ed i t ion (presumably an advance copy) was in Swinburne's hands by la te October 1874,

9 and

i t was l i s t e d in "Publicat ions of the Week" in the Spectator of 14 November 1874.

10

In his correspondence wi th Mrs. G i l ch r i s t and Swinburne between August 1873 and March 1874, Rossetti discussed mainly copyright matters and the inclusion of representative Prophetic Books. I n i t i a l l y he ant ic ipated no d i f f i c u l t y over the ten poems from the manuscript book la te r known as the Pickering MS., nine of which D. G. Rossetti had pr inted in Volume I I of G i l c h r i s t . On 25 August 1873 he wrote to Mrs. G i l ch r i s t that " B [ e l l ] wd. probably succeed in e f fec t ing some arrangement with M[acmillan] & P[ icker ing] enabling B. to reproduce the poems," though four days l a te r he admitted that "the matter appears to be a l i t t l e compl icated."

1 1

By 27 February 1874 he had reason to complain to Swinburne about "a provoking claim of copyr ight , " and his fear that he might have to "miss out" the poems, "thus spoi l ing the e d i t i o n . "

1 2 In another

l e t t e r to Swinburne of 4 March 1874 he reported as fo l lows:

The copyright d i f f i c u l t y — o f wh. I foresaw something from the f i r s t — i s t h i s . You

it 8

6

P R E F A T O R Y MEMO I R .

1.—PRELIMINARY.

> N writ ing a Memoir of William Blake, little or no difficulty can now arise as to the external facts—the dates, personages, and incidents. The truly­valuable and so far exhaustive book

of Mr. Alexander Gilchrist has settled all these points for us substantially ; it barely requires to

be here and there rectified or supplemented in

some minor particular. I ts tone moreover is as earnest and elevated as its research is true and

thorough. I need hardly say that I am indebted

to this book for the vast majority of my facts : any one who undertakes to write about Blako

cannot be otherwise. Thus far, therefore, every­th ing is plain : one has openly to acknowledge a genuine debt of grat i tude to Mr. Gilchrist, and

to run up the account freely. The difficulty of Blake's biographers, subsequent

to 1863, the date of Mr. Gilchrist's book, is of a different kind altogether. I t is the difficulty of s ta t ing sufficiently high the extraordinary claims

b

remember that certain poems by Blake were for the first time published in Gilchrist's book­viz.: those wh. came from the manuscript belonging to Gabriel & me, & also certain others (Auguries of Innocence, Mental Traveller, &c) wh. came from a small MS. then in the hands of Mrs. Gilchrist. The poems from this small MS. are someone's copyright for 42 years from date of first publication (1863), just as the poems from Gabriel's & my manuscript are our copyright. It turns out that the small book was claimed by and returned to Tatham, who sold it to Harvey (bookseller), who sold it to Pickering;13 & the latter republished these poems in or about 1865, along with the Innocence & Experience. Thus Pickering is the present owner of this copyright; & he, not liking Bell, nor relishing a further republica­tion of the poems, declines to authorize reissue. This is very annoying. Bell did tell me a fortnight or so ago that he understands Dr. Wilkinson is in possession of a certain Blake MS. containing perhaps these same poems, or most of them, & that Wilkinson would allow their republication from this other MS. Of this I have as yet heard no more, & fear it will prove fallacious.14

Wilkinson's manuscript did not materialize,15 but

Rossetti was able to confide to Swinburne on 9 March 1874 that further probing by Bell had established an interpretation of the ownership of copyright favorable to his edition:

Bell told me the other day . . . that the only poem to wh. Pickering's copyright really

applies is Long John Brown.16 This is indeed

a great satisfaction: for whether L. J. B. is in or out matters hardly at all. I don't however understand why Pickering's copyright is limited to that particular poem. My view of the matter was this: ­­copyright attached to that whole series of poems for 42 years following date of first publication, 1863: Pickering, at a later date, became the legal owner of the poems, and therefore of the unexpired residue of their copyright. Macmillan

. . . was never the owner of the copyright. Mrs. Gilchrist was the owner, as regards the Life generally: & it seems each proprietor of poems previously unpublished was owner of the copyright in those same poems. Hence Tatham was in 1863 owner of the copyright in the Pickering poems. I am surprised to learn that he is still the owner; but Bell's letter seems to imply as much. Tatham gave me carte blanche some while ago, in case he had any rights in the matter. l ' Although Rossetti obviously had doubts about

Bell's understanding of the matter, he finally added the Pickering poems to his edition, excluding "Long John Brown" as D. G. Rossetti had done in 1863. In the circumstances one would expect him to have reproduced his brother's versions,18

but his practice was sometimes to follow the edition prepared for Pickering by R. H. Shepherd in 1866 and reissued in 1874, at other times to follow his brother, while at the same time introducing emendations of his own.19

For example, as Sampson pointed out in 1905, Rossetti's text of "The Grey Monk" adopts four of D. G. Rossetti's emendations, but "follows Shepherd

T1RIEL.

XI) aged Tiricl stood before the gates / \ \ " ^ of his beautiful palace,

■ With My rat ana. once the Queen of all the western plains ;

But now his eyes wen darkened, and his wife Fading in death.

They stood before their once delightful palace ; and

thus the voice Of aged Tiricl arose, that his sons might hear in

their gates.

'• Accursed race of Tiricl! behold your father: Come forth and look on her that bore you. Come,

you accursed sons. In my weak arms I here have borne your dying

mother; Come forth, sons of the curse, come forth! see the

death of Myratana."

His sans ran from their gates, and saw their aged

parents stand : And thus the elded son of Tiricl raised his mighty

voice: —

in the number and arrangement of verses, and generally as to text, adopting two out of the three important changes from the MS. Book version."

20 On

the other hand, in "The Crystal Cabinet" he adopts freely from both Shepherd and D. G. Rossetti, and introduces substantial punctuation of his own devising. But on the whole he was cautious about offering new readings. Fresh from his editing of Shelley, he had no wish to encounter again the many reviewers who had taken exception to his numerous conjectural emendations of Shelley's poems.

21

As for the Prophetic Books, Rossetti was not sufficiently enthusiastic to champion them against Bell's dismissal beyond arguing for the inclusion of a sampling.

22 In his Diary for 6 August 1873

(quoted above) he mentions The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, but by 23 August he had decided on Thel,

23 choosing it, he answered Swinburne who had

urged on him the claims of Visions of the Daughters of Albion,

not because it is the best of the Prophetic Books (of course it is far from being such), but because it is short, lyrical in tone & approximately in form, & easily accesible--being printed in Gilchrist's book. The Visions of the Daughters of Albion wd. have had to be hunted up: probably transcribed bodily from some copy in the British Museum. I don't remember it very exactly, but am quite prepared to think it is a finer poem than Thel: I do remember that it is one of the more startling of Blake's moral dithyrambics, & that wd. weight the scale agst. it.

24

"The prospective publisher is not a known emanation of the giant Albion," he reminded Swinburne later in the letter. Why he included Tiriel as well is not clear, though the unexpected reappearance of the manuscript was the most likely reason.

25 When

Swinburne, in acknowledging Rossetti's edition, regretted its "public appearance," Rossetti merely replied that he was "Sorry you are so adverse to Tiriel--wh. I for my part think fully entitled to its place in the book."

26

At the same time, it should be noted that however ambivalent Rossetti's attitude towards the Prophetic Books was, he favored publication of a letterpress edition. Their exclusion from the Aldine edition, he insisted to Swinburne, "wd. not have been my voluntary choice," and he again excused that "it was obviously the only course likely to be adopted by a Publisher."

2'' In the Memoir prefixed

to the edition he explicitly called for publication, arguing that "Blake will be but imperfectly known even to his enthusiasts until this is done."

2*

Four years later, in a review in the Academy of the facsimile edition of Jerusalem published by Pearson in 1877, he pleaded at length:

We cannot omit the present opportunity of saying that the publication in ordinary book-form, without designs, and without any attempt at facsimile of text, of the Jerusalem and other Prophetic Books, is highly to be desired. Difficult under any circumstances, it would be a good deal less difficult to read these works in an edition of that kind, with clear print,

T H E BOOK OF THEL.

(ENGRAVED 1789.)

Does the Eagle know what is in the pit, Or wilt thou go ask the Mole ?

Can Wisdom be put in a silver rod, Or Love in a golden bowl ?

PHE Daughters of the Seraphim led round

their sunny flocks,—

All but the youngest: she in paleness

sought the secret air,

To fade away like morning beauty from her

mortal day.

Down by the river of Adona her soft voice is

heard,

And thus her gentle lamentation falls like

morning dew.

�� 0 life of this our Spring ! why fades the lotus of

the water ?

Why fade these children of the Spring, born but

to smile and fall?

Ah ! Thel is like a watery bow, and like a parting

cloud,

reasonable division of lines, and the like aids to business-like perusal. An index of the mythologic personages of Blake's strangely-named pantheon or pandemonium, with an account of their various and semi-intelligible per-formances throughout the successive Prophetic Books, would also be a powerful aid to such understanding of the subject as is, in the nature of things, possible. No doubt the compilation of such an index would be rather like attempting to draw a nightmare to scale: but something or other in that direction could undoubtedly be accomplished, with patience and goodwill for the work.

29

About the possibility of approaching total explica-tion he remained skeptical. In an unpublished passage of his autobiography, written between 1901 and 1903, he observed:

I know most of what has been written about Blake, but have not investigated the elaborate study of his works by Messrs. Ellis & Yeats in their edition of a few years ago. I had a little speech with them on this subject, & learned that they regarded Blake's religious or quasi-religious utterances, usually counted to be chaotic, as cosmical in essence, & in detail interpretable. I presume that this view is to some valid extent justified by their commentary; yet cannot bring myself to think that Blake was in these matters a constructive thinker or an orderly expositor. My impression continues as heretofore—that, while he was a great genius in two arts, there was also a maniacal side to his intellect. Needless to

8

say that he was not a madman pure & simple:

but he was a creative inventor whose ideas &

utterances struggled beyond the limits of

sanity. This view may be erroneous: it is

the one to which my studies of Blake's works

have led me.30

That Rossetti deleted this passage when he prepared

his autobiography for publication in 1906 could, of

course, be interpreted as suggesting a waning of

confidence in his judgment.

To the reviewers of the Aldine edition in 1874-

1875, Rossetti's kind of cautious assessment was

(in a word applied to the Memoir by most of them)

"sound." Edmund Gosse's two-part review in the

Examiner11 offers the most pronounced indication of

critical opinion of Blake in the 1870s. Gosse, a

friend both of the Rossetti's and of Swinburne,

declared that there was a danger "that, after so

long a time of disgrace and oblivion, the reaction

may be too violent, and the enthusiasm over the new-

found wonder be blind and altogether excessive."

He confessed that "some such fear as this was in

our mind when we began Mr. Rossetti's long, learned,

and most interesting memoir; and, though we are of

the opinion that in one or two cases his admiration

for his subject has led him beyond what the canons

of pure criticism permit, we are bound in justice

to say that, as a whole, his memoir is as remarkable

for clear judgment and good sense as it is for

enthusiasm." At the same time Gosse was sharply

critical of Rossetti's urging of the publication of

the Prophetic Books: "He seems to us to propose

one of the most hopeless and ill-advised experiments

that the publishing world has ever seen." A similar

criticism came from John Dennis in the Spectator. 32

Dennis expressed surprise that, considering

Rossetti's opinion that the Prophetic Books "are

neither readable nor even entirely sane" (Dennis'

words), he should consider it desirable that they

be published: "We disagree with him altogether.

Blake wrote a great deal of what, had it been the

work of a smaller man, would be accounted trash,

and the sooner it is forgotten the better for his

fame. We venture indeed to think that Mr. Rossetti

would have done wisely to omit a good deal contained

in this small volume, since there are passages here

as free almost from mind and meaning as any combina-

tion of words could well be." Only George Saintsbury

in the Academy33 supported publication: "The sooner

it is done the better." Yet even Saintsbury was of

the opinion that on Blake's madness Rossetti's

"conclusions might have been safely stated with

much less qualification, that Blake was most

undoubtedly mad, unless the meaning of words is to

be strangely perverted." Much the same point was

made, less sympathetically, by Coventry Patmore in

the St. James's Gazette: "Mr. W. Rossetti . . .

goes a great way further in his admiration of Blake

than reason can be shown for."34 What these reviews

amply demonstrate (and other reviews in such papers

as the Daily News and the Sunday Times closely echo

them)35 is that the publishers were clearly right

in thinking that the Prophetic Books did not yet

have a place in a "popular" edition of Blake's

poems, and just as clearly, that Rossetti's qualified

assessment of Blake's genius, however tame and

wrong-headed it would in time appear, was in 1874

somewhat in advance of the times. The real value

of Rossetti's edition, as Saintsbury remarked,

consisted in the "increased facilities" it offered

for studying a significant portion of Blake's poetry,

and of assessing its "certain excellences." This

value it retained until its place was taken by the

Yeats-Ellis edition of 1893, and, more effectively,

by Sampson's one-volume edition of 1905.36

1 Rosset t i ' s par t in the 1863 and 1880 ed i t ions of G i l c h r i s t ,

his Aldine e d i t i o n , and his miscellaneous wr i t i ngs on Blake are discussed in the b ib l iographies by Keynes, and Bentley and Nurmi, and in Deborah Dorfman, Blake in the Nineteenth Century (New Haven, 1969). Dorfman's account of the Aldine ed i t i on is the f u l l e s t (pp. 112-14, 165-67), but i t needs supplementing as provided here. Our knowledge of the preparat ion of Rosset t i ' s catalogue raisonnc fo r G i l c h r i s t is sketchy, but i t should be possible to f i l l in the de ta i l s as more of Rosset t i ' s corres-pondence becomes ava i lab le . Of Rosset t i ' s miscellaneous wr i t i ngs on Blake, the fo l lowing do not appear in the standard l i s t s :

(1) " G i l c h r i s t ' s L i f e of Blake," Reader, 2 (November 1863), 544. (Corrects a statement in the Reader about his part in completing G i l c h r i s t . ) (2) Review of Select:. he Writings of Blake, wi th an Introductory Essay by Laurence Housman, Athenaeum, 3 June 1893, p. 700. ( I d e n t i f i e d from Rosset t i ' s f i l e of the Athenaeum i n the Library of the Courtauld I n s t i t u t e . ) (3) "The Wi l l iam Blake Rev iva l , " Daily Graphic, 2 November 1904, Supplement, p. 1. (Review of Russel l 's ' Letters of Blake, E l l i s ' Poetical Works of Blake, and G. Robertson's ed i t i on of G i l c h r i s t . )

2 Suzanne R. Hoover, "The Public Reception o f G i l c h r i s t ' s Life of

Blake," Blake Newsletter, 8 (1974), 26-31, points out that there" were at least ha l f a dozen favorable reviews in B r i t i s h p e r i o d i -cals up to th i s date.

' Houghton Library MS., Harvard Un ivers i ty . A l l quotat ions from manuscripts a re , to the best of my knowledge, published fo r the f i r s t t ime. I am indebted to Mrs. Imogen Dennis fo r permission to quote from the l e t t e r s and d ia r ies of her grandfather Wi l l iam Michael Rosset t i , and to Prof. W. E. Fredeman and the Univers i ty of B r i t i s h Columbia fo r permission to publ ish the ext racts from Rosset t i ' s d ia r ies (from the Angeli Papers). Permission to publ ish manuscripts in t h e i r Col lect ions has also been given by the fo l lowing l i b r a r i e s : the B r i t i s h L ib ra ry , the Bodleian, and the Houghton.

'* On "The Aldine Poets," an establ ished series then being reissued wi th new names at a popular p r i c e , see Edward B e l l , George Bell, Publisher (London, 1924), p. 51 .

5 The Athenaeum reported on 5 July 1873, p. 17, that "The term

o f partnership ex i s t i ng between Messrs. Bell & Daldy having exp i red , Mr. Daldy has r e t i r ed from that f i r m . "

6 As published the Memoir ran to 125 pp.

; MS. Diary. Angeli Papers, Special Co l l ec t i ons , Univers i ty of

B r i t i s h Columbia.

9

8 B. L. Ashley MS. A1444, f o l . 109v.

9 Swinburne Letters, ed. C. Y. Lang (New Haven, 1959-1962), I I , 348.

10 Spectator, p. 1439. Also noted in " L i s t of New Books,"

Athenaeum, 14 November 1874, p. 642. Both l i s t s give the pr ice as 5 / - .

11 Letters of William Michael Rossetti to Anne Gilchrist, ed. C. Gohdes and P. F. Baum (Durham, N. C., 1934), pp. 87, 89.

12 B. L. Ashley MS. 1446, f o l . 91 .

13 Cf. the account of provenance given by G. E. Bentley, J r . , in The Blake Collection of Mrs. London K. Thome (New York, 1971), pp. 42-43.

111 B. L. Ashley MS. A1444, f o i l . 109v.-110v.

15 " I t seems Wilkinson has not got those rumoured Blake poems:

but he has re fer red Bel l to a lady who is supposed to possess something of the k i n d . " Rossetti to Swinburne, 9 March [1874]. B. L. Ashley MS. 1446, f o i l . 93-93v.

16 I t appl ied also to "Song by a Shepherd" and "Song by an Old

Shepherd," published fo r the f i r s t time in R. H. Shepherd's 1874 e d i t i o n . Rossetti excluded both from his e d i t i o n .

17 B. L. Ashley MS. 1446, f o i l . 93-94.

18 In ear ly October 1874 he was s t i l l discussing the matter of

tex t w i th D. G. Rosse t t i , who suggested: "About the Auguries of Innocence e t c . , i t s t r i kes me tha t a verbatim version of the former, a t any r a t e , appeared in Swinburne's Blake—did i t not? and might in that case be repr in ted by Bell & Daldy i f you w ish . " {Letters of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, ed. 0. Doughty and J . R. Wahl (Oxford, 1965-1967), I I I , 1314.) Wi l l iam's review of Shepherd's 1874 e d i t i o n , P icker ing 's f l y -shee t a t tack ing the ed i t i ng of the poems in G i l c h r i s t , and Rosset t i ' s reply in the Academy (see Dorfman, pp. 112-13), a l l o f which appeared between 5 September and 10 October 1874, undoubtedly delayed Rosset t i ' s decision about adopting readings from Shepherd's t e x t .

19 Cf. G. Keynes' statement [A Blake Bibliography (New York,

1921), p. 271) tha t in the poems from the Pickering MS. Rossetti "general ly" fol lowed D. G. Rosset t i . Keynes co r rec t l y notes that Rosset t i ' s tex t o f the Poetical Sketches " i s derived from Shepherd's ed i t i on of 1868 . . . and is very accurate, " whereas in the case o f the Songs of Innocence and of Experience and of the poems from the Rossetti MS. he " fo l lowed the very inaccurate versions given by D. G. Rossetti in G i l c h r i s t . "

2 0 The Poetical Works of William Blake, ed. J. Sampson (Oxford, 1905), p. 284.

2 1 Chief among them was Robert Buchanan in the Athenaeum f o r

29 January 1870, pp. 154-56.

2 2 During the 1860's Rosset t i ' s a t t i t u d e towards the Prophetic

Books, i f not over ly sympathetic, was a t least open. On 22 May 1862 Mrs. G i l c h r i s t requested from him " b r i e f general" descr ip-t ions of The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, The Book of Ahania, The Song of Los, Asia, and Africa. [Rossetti Papers, ed. W. M. Rossetti (London, 1903), p. 6.) Perhaps i t is to these tha t Rossetti re fers in an unpublished passage of his Reminiscences (Bodley MS. Eng. Misc. d. 332, f o l . 213) where he records that remarks by him of a c r i t i c a l bearing were embodied in G i l c h r i s t ' s Life. That Mrs. G i l c h r i s t ' s l i s t was extended is suggested by

a surv iv ing note on Visions of the Daughters of Albion, which Mrs. G i l c h r i s t "reduced," ce r ta in that Macmillan would re jec t i t , though she considered i t "most vigorous and admirable." (H. H. G i l c h r i s t , Anne Gilchrist, Her Life and Writings (London, 1887), pp. 127-28, where the o r i g i na l note is p r i n ted . She in fac t rewrote i t , replacing Rosset t i ' s d i r ec t exposi t ion w i th the statement that "Formidable moral questions are opened up through the medium of t h i s a l legory . . . . But we w i l l not enter on them here." {Life of Blake (London, 1863), p. 108.) Even th i s statement was omitted from the second ed i t i on of 1880.) I t is worth mentioning as well Rosset t i ' s lengthy exposi t ion of "The Mental T rave l l e r , " p r in ted in G i l c h r i s t , as evidence of his w i l l ingness to tack le a d i f f i c u l t t e x t ; and his constant support fo r Swinburne's Blake, o f which he wrote to the poet on 2 January [1866] a f t e r reading the manuscript: " I should consider i t s pub l ica t ion the greatest service a t present possible to Blake, & hardly i n f e r i o r to a f u l l c r i t i c a l ed i t i on of his w r i t i n g s . " (B. L. Ashley MS. 1446, f o l . 2v.)

2 3 Letters to Anne Gilchrist, p. 85.

2k 7 March [1874]. B. L. Ashley MS. 1446, f o i l . 92-92v.

2 5 Poetical Works of William Blake, ed. W. M. Rossetti (London, 1874), p. cxx i i i .

2 6 4 November [1874]. B. L. Ashley MS. 1446, f o l . 96.

2 7 4 March [1874]. B. L. Ashley MS. A1444, f o l . 109v.

2 8 Poetical Works, p. cxxix.

2 9 Academy, 13 (1878), 174.

"Some Reminiscences." Bodley MS. Eng. Misc. d. 331, fol. 214.

Two visits, one from Yeats and one from Yeats and Ellis, are

recorded in Rossetti's Diary (Special Collections, University

of British Columbia): 11 September 1890, "Yeats the young Irish

Poet (to whom I was introauceu borne wmie ago at a Shelley

meeting) left a card the other day noting that he wd. like to

speak to me on some Blake matters, as he is now writing on that

subject. I explained that we are in the confusion of moving, &

suggested that he might perhaps as well call at Somer. Ho. He

did so today, & we had a longish talk. He is certainly a very

acute & bright-minded young man. He & one of the Ellis (Philo-

logical) family are engaged in producing a complete edition of

B's Prophetical Books &c. , with comment expounding his philo-

sophical or speculative system—wh. Y. regards as being founded

very mainly on Boehme. This matter was glanced at in an article

by York Powell (I was reading it the other evg.), introductory

to the "Book of Los" lately discovered. Tho' I have not as yet

been disposed to regard B's Jerusalem &c. as capable of more

than a moderate amount of reasoned explanation, I see, from what

Y. says, that there is a good deal to be adduced & expounded

from his point of view. What he more particuly. wanted from

me was to trace out the Book of Ahania, & The French Revolution.

He says they are not in the British Museum. My impression is

that that is where I read them (in 1862): I shall probably, as

I look into the matter, be able to give Y. some little further

informn. as to details. I referred Y. to that passage in my

Memoir of B. in wh. I indicate the affiliation of his theology

to that of Marcion: Y. seems as yet not to have fixed his

attention on this passage, but he will now give some practical

study to the question."

13 April 1891, "Yeats, & his colleague in the project of re-

editing Blake . . . called on me at Somers. Ho. Their undertaking

has now reached an advanced stage. They showed me one of the

Prophetic Books reprinted in a quasi-facsimile. I think--& told

them so--that I regard this as a decided mistake. One cannot

read with any comfort a book in any such sort of fancy-type:

besides the cost of the edition, both to projectors and to pur-

chasers must thus become beyond all bounds of reason."

Yeats later wrote of Rossetti, apropos of his opinion of

the Prophetic Books, that he was "a man of exceptional ability

and high literary standing, who happens not to be in sympathy

with Blake's method of writing." The Works of William Blake, ed. E. J. Ellis and W. B. Yeats (London, 1893), I, 54-55.

31 14, 21 November 1874, pp. 1243-44, 1270-71.

32 2 January 1875, pp. 14-16. I am indebted to my colleague,

Dr. R. H. Tener, for identifying the reviewer from his transcript

of the Spectator records.

33 6 (5 December 1874), 599-601.

34 Reprinted in Principles in Art (London, 1907), p. 94.

15 Daily News, 5 December 1874, p. 2; Sunday Times, 22 November

1374, p". 7. A neglected fou r -pa r t review by G. W. Foote, the a the is t who was t r i e d fo r blasphemy in 1883, appeared in the National Reformer, N.S. 25 (14, 2 1 , 28 February, 21 March 1875), 100-01, 115-16, 131-32, 181-82. Foote observed that a f t e r his "generous v ind ica t ion of the r i s i n g genius of Swinburne" and his ed i t i on of Whitman, Rossetti had turned appropr ia te ly to Blake, a poet "as audacious even as Whitman."

3 6 Since the records o f G. Bell & Sons are unavai lab le , i t is

impossible to know how of ten the volume was repr in ted . I have examined the fo l lowing r e p r i n t s : 1875, 1879, 1882, 1883, 1885, 1888, May 1890, October 1890, 1891, 1893, 1913, 1914 ("Bonn's Popular L ib ra ry , " w i th the add i t ion of the three Pickering copy-r i gh t pieces mentioned above). Bentley and Nurmi note repr in ts of 1890 and 1911.